


Silk

by ladyofrosefire



Category: L.A. By Night (Web Series)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 02:17:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20958821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofrosefire/pseuds/ladyofrosefire
Summary: A quick pre-canon snapshot of Nelli and Victor involving nice cars, dress zippers, and boundaries.





	Silk

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to damoselmaledisant for both the prompt and beta-reading ♥️

By the time Victor’s car reaches her apartment, the heavy beat of the music has faded from her chest. It had been strong enough to rattle her bones and completely cover the lack of a heartbeat, and her ears throb a little, the sound of the streets around them seem muffled by comparison. 

The car comes to a halt, and Victor is out his side of the back seat before she has a chance to comment. Then her door swings open. He stands there, offering a hand and a smile. It’s smug, of course. He’s a Ventrue; she’s never met one of them who is capable of _not _being smug for more than a couple seconds at a time. But this kind of smug invites her in, and it feels bright and _clean_. The _mine _is not _her_, which, right then, is everything. 

Nelli takes his hand and lets her help her to get onto the sidewalk. Even in her needle-sharp heels and her long, slinky dress, she doesn’t need it. But she lingers a moment in the performance, brushing invisible creases out of her skirt with one hand. Passers-by watch them, hungry, envious, adoring. She doesn’t bother acknowledging them. It would break the illusion without a red carpet to step onto. Instead, she looks up at Victor. Even in her heels, he is way, way too tall compared to her. But he keeps out of her space, even with her hand held in his. He returns her gaze evenly, still smiling. Then, deliberately, he brushes his thumb in a slow arc across the back of her hand. 

Nelli tosses her hair over one shoulder and tilts her head at him, one eyebrow lifting in a perfect arch. She hasn’t practiced the look in a mirror; she doesn’t need to. Victor smiles wider, but she knows it landed. “Hoping for something, dear?”

“Aren’t I always?”

She considers him for a moment before tipping her head toward the door and the doorman. “Walk me upstairs?”

“Of course.” 

Nelli rests her hand on his arm over the fine weave of the suit she picked for him for the space of a second. Then she drops it back to her hip, propped there lazily, as though she’s back on a runway. Victor smiles and looks at her hand. And then he walks her inside. No hand at the small of her back, no possessive breath at her ear. Just his presence at her side silently tugging at her attention, and the scent of his cologne faded after the party. She stops before she can start breathing in too much and find the blood beneath. 

They ride up in the elevator, standing just close enough for her arm to brush his sleeve. 

Nelli lets him into her Haven. 

Despite her best efforts, she hitches just a little in the doorway. But it’s only her living room. The door to _her _room is shut, and there’s the whole of the unused kitchen—now workroom—and her study between them and it. And this is _her _space. 

She steps into the center of it, dropping her clutch onto the coffee table, and turns. “Drink?”

Victor raises both brows and makes a point of surveying the silent apartment. “Do you have some_one _lying around?” then he pauses, “Actually, now that I say it, that’s not impossible. But no, thank you. I’m… well-fed.” He looks it—relaxed, shoulders lose, that smile turned knowing. 

And _normally _ Nelli knows not to get into a sparring match with a Ventrue, but it seems she’s there already. From the moment she had taken his hand to climb out of the car.

With just a little more sway to her steps than the heels demand, she moves to the radio and flicks the dial. The music is low and slow, the kind of thing she could rumba to if she wanted. 

When she looks up, Victor is still watching her. “Is there something I could do for you?”

It’s a _dangerous _question, and a hot, lightning thrill runs up her spine.

Nelli smiles, showing none of her teeth—yet. Then, deliberately, she turns her back on him. “Help me with my dress.”

Victor spreads his hands magnanimously, “I’d be happy to.” 

He steps up behind her. Again, the presence, the faded scent of smoke and spice, and the sweetness of vitae. She stops breathing. 

“Nelli?”

“Mmm?” She brushes her hair over her shoulder and then looks back at him, cool and expectant, her throat dry. Her tongue traces just barely against her lower lip. “Well?”

“Okay.”

She almost pushes it. Of course, he saw something, and she can’t convince him it was nothing. The best she can do is start breathing again, get her performance back together. 

Victor fiddles for a moment with the hook at the top of her dress before it comes free. One knuckle drags down her back ahead of the zipper and the brush of parting silk. The sound of the metal teeth parting cuts through the music. Her dress falls open, revealing her back and the lacy band of her bra. This time, Nelli buries the shiver as best she can. It follows the zipper all the way to the base of her spine. The barest bit of lace shows beneath it maybe half an inch above his lingering hand.

Behind her, Victor shifts.

Nelli never finds out what he would have done because she turns and steps away. Her dress hangs on her shoulders, just barely, the neck dipping low. Victor drops his hands and stands there. It’s not hunger she sees, or not _just _hunger when she looks at him. She almost has to check whether she brought Awe up by accident. And then that smile returns, the knowing one that makes something bright flip over in her stomach. 

“It’s almost dawn,” he comments. 

“Thanks for the ride home.”

“Thanks for coming to the opening. Wouldn’t have been the same without you.” Victor pauses halfway to her door and turns back to her. “I’ll be there again tomorrow. You should come by.”

“Of course.”

“I know what you like. I’ll see about getting in some of the right crowd for you.”

“After I went to the opening?” She raises an eyebrow at him, and this time, she smiles. “They’ll be beating the door down.”

He chuckles and nods, gesturing as if to say _touché. _Then he sighs, tugs his coat straight, and opens the door. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Victor.”

For a moment after the door swings shut, Nelli stands in the center of her living room. Then she shrugs her dress to the floor.


End file.
